


you create a rarity of my genuine smile

by quidhitch



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: F/F, anyways i love girls sm hope u guys enjoy, ha another fem!au, what else am i good for eh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 14:18:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9127444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quidhitch/pseuds/quidhitch
Summary: Jacqueline Zimmermann is just… way too fucking gay for this.She used to be able to do homework in the kitchen. She used to be able to focus on the various structural significances of six only marginally different pyramids in Ancient Egypt - something that is, in fact, extremely interesting to her - and bang out a five page paper within an hour, all to the soothing background noises of her teammates painting each others’ nails and occasionally shouting at hockey players on TV.Ever since Bittle joined the team, though? It’s been a very different story.





	

Jacqueline Zimmermann is just… way too fucking gay for this. 

She used to be able to do homework in the kitchen. She used to be able to focus on the various structural significances of six only _marginally_ different pyramids in Ancient Egypt - something that is, in fact, extremely interesting to her - and bang out a five page paper within an hour, all to the soothing background noises of her teammates painting each others’ nails and occasionally shouting at hockey players on TV.

Ever since Bittle joined the team, though? It’s been a very different story.

Jacqui tries as hard as she can not to notice the way Bitty seems to float around the kitchen in pink booty shorts, an adorable spot of flour on her cheek, whisps of blonde hair slipping out of her high ponytail. 

But then Bitty starts humming under her breath, the sound soft and gentle and distracting as hell, and Jacqui finds her eyes right back where they’re not supposed to be - the spot where Bitty’s fuchsia tank top strap has slipped down her shoulder.

It’s made even more embarrassing by the fact five times out of ten, she gets caught staring.

“Umm… Jacqui? Are you alright, hon?”

She’s trying so hard to stop her flush from spreading down her cheeks - think about the first time you chipped a tooth in juniors, Henry the eighth beheading his wives, literally _anything_ but Bittle’s stupid tank top strap - but the heat on her collar tells her she’s failed.

“What do you want, Bittle?” 

Her voice is too brusque, jerky, almost, and it shows in the nervous way Bitty wrings her hands. Jacqui wonders if she could maybe not be the absolute worst for thirty seconds, that would be great.

“Sorry,” she says immediately, shutting her laptop and running a hand through her cropped hair. This isn’t who she is anymore, she _likes_ Bittle, she likes having her on the team and talking to her every day and she wants her there. She also just needs to… get a handle on herself.

“This paper is just… I’m having a hard time focusing on it.”

“Oh?” Bittle asks, dusting her hands off on her apron. She skips over to the counter, leaning across it to look at the books Jacqui has scattered around her. “Egypt, huh? Sounds cool.”

“It is,” Jacqui sighs, “and this is a burial site I’ve actually been to. I shouldn’t be having such a hard time.”

Bittle lets out a dazed and delighted kind of giggle, her hand slapped over her mouth. Jacqui kind of never wants to stop hearing it for the rest of her life.

“You’ve been to _Egypt_?” she asks, propping her hand on her chin and looking at Jacqui with wide eyes.

“Dad took me after… uh, the summer before my freshman year at Samwell,” she explains, eyes dropping to the books. She runs her finger across one of the pyramids embossed on the front, “he thought it’d cheer me up.”

“Golly,” Bitty says, her expression gentle and sympathetic when Jacqui looks up. Sympathy on anyone else makes Jacqui want to punch them, but Bitty…well. There’s nothing Bitty doesn’t wear well. “When I was upset growin’ up, Mama used to schedule a hair appointment and that was that.”

“Really? Did that actually work?”

“Didn’t make me sad, that’s for sure,” Bitty laughs, pretending to fluff up the back of her ponytail, “nothing bad about looking good.”

“Certainly not,” Jacqui agrees, and then immediately wants to punch herself in the face for saying it. 

She and Bitty hold eye contact for a couple of seconds, and the playful glint in Bitty’s eyes is just enough to set Jacqui’s heart at an elevated rate. It’s just eye contact, but it feels… like more than she’s allowed herself to have in a very long time.

 After a moment to long, Jacqui clears her throat and looks down, uselessly shuffling papers as she asks, “is there something you needed?”

“Oh! It’s a little silly,” Bitty responds in her soft Georgian accent. She looks shy, peeking at Jacqui through her bangs, and Jacqui feels her heart melt a little.

“Don’t worry about it. I need a quick break anyways.”

“I’m not sure how much of a break this’ll be, but,” Bitty gestures to the stove, where there’s a simmering pot of…something chocolate, “I need a real strong arm to stir this pudding to the right consistency, and nobody in the Haus has got stronger arms than you, so.”

Jacqui feels her heart jump right into her throat.

“Right,” she says, slowly rising from her stool, “that’s-…yeah. I can do that.”

“Thanks,” Bitty smiles, hopping up onto the kitchen counter next to the stove, crossing one leg over the other so her shorts ride up just the slightest bit. Jacqui swallows. 

“No problem,” _Henry the Eighth beheading his wives, Henry the Eighth beheading his wives, Henry the Eighth beheading his wives_ , “though, with a little more protein, you could be doing this yourself.”

“Oh, Jacqui,” Bitty’s laugh is sugar sweet even as she rolls her eyes, and Jacqui channels her corresponding frustration into stirring, “a couple of chicken breasts aren’t going to turn me into _you_.”

“Well, you never know until you try it.”

“That was almost a joke, Jacqueline Zimmermann, I am _shocked_.”

“Yeah, don’t tell the others or anything. They’ll start expecting it from me.”

“And that would just be a disaster, wouldn’t it?” Bitty smiles and Jacqui almost smiles back and there is just half a moment where they-… where they might…

But Bitty notices the Pudding bubbling a little more than should, and quickly reaches over Jacqui’s hand to turn down the heat. The stove is on medium but Jacqui’s cheeks are at approximately ten thousand degrees.

“Sorry,” Bitty says, sheepish as she hops off the counter, “I got distracted.”

“It’s fine,” Jacqui says quietly, eyes flicking down to the pudding.

“You can probably stop now, I think it’s thick enough,” Bitty says, coming up behind Jacqui and placing a stilling hand on her arm. Jacqui steadies herself, determined not to flinch at the contact. She offers Bitty a terse smile, and backs away from the stove in a way she hopes isn’t too obvious. Judging from the way Bitty’s smile dims just slightly, it probably is.

“Thanks so much for your help, hon,” she says, the twist of her perfectly glossed lips just on the extreme side of sweet, “I’ll call you down when they’re done, yeah?”

“You know I can’t eat these, Bits,” Jacqui smiles, arms folded over her chest.

“Well, Ms. Zimmermann,” Bitty says, her smile gaining an edge of… an edge of something. She crosses the kitchen and turns around, tapping the nape of her neck. Jacqui swallows, but obediently pulls at the checkered strings of Bitty’s apron. Bitty shakes it off and folds it over her arm, and her smile when she turns around is something soft and warm.

“You have to indulge sometimes,” she says, tugging her shiny blonde hair out of its holder and reaching to pat Jacqui’s shoulder. She stops herself at the last minute, her hand hovering over the skin there, before dropping it and scurrying off to the sitting room.

The words ring in Jacqui’s ears as she goes, Bittle’s fuzzy pink bunny slippers flopping noisily against the linoleum. 

It takes her longer than she cares to admit, getting back to the paper. Logistically, she should be so much more focused. Realistically, she just… skates her fingers absently across the place on her arm she should’ve let Bittle touch, and waits until she comes back when the pudding’s done cooling.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm at quidhitch on tumblr! come say hi <3


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